Failsafe Brainstorming Thread (Contains spoilers!)

[Skyviper086]

This will contain spoilers. If you don't want to know what they are do not proceed past this point.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So after the battle of Bunker Hill (if you're taking the route of the Institute) Father explains that you were kept alive as a Fail safe, should something go wrong with him during the institute's earlier phase of development those many years ago.

 

 

That conversation gave me inspiration to write a story about the hero character being activated as a fail safe for the institute. In short instead of waking up in a vault you'll be waking up in a lab.

 

The part that I'm getting hung up on is finding some logical reasons the character would want to move on.

 

The lore of the game is the hero finding the son. Big shock the son is the leader of the big bad Institute.

 

So either the son can be alive and used as a means to coerce the player into executing their will. Or the son can be dead and the player can explore parts of the facility that have been hidden (like the FEV labs) to find out what really happens.

 

 

But after all of that crap, what then? Explore the harsh wastelands? Find a way to destroy the institute? Or go along with their plans?

 

What are you thoughts ... is this whole just completely stupid or is something interesting here?

[montky]

interesting discussion for an alternate start place in FO4.

by all means, share any lore discussion or ideas you have - who knows what can come from discussions hehe.

 

do the player character still go to V111? or, are they moved to The Institute at the same time as the Descendant?

 

You could start in one of the tubes in the FEV lab,

with Virgil and "Father" protesting your use in FEV testing...

perhaps you have more in common with Kellogg than you thought?

a cyborg-supermutant... horrific.

 

You're woken up, and Robert Picardo's scientist character tells the player

'there's no time to explain, take this pip-boy, you have to go"

Virgil also helps them to leave The Institute.

 

// start fan theory

The Institute is in two camps -

the 'good' institute, who want the institute to remain a benevolent and neutral independent faction.

the 'bad' institute - some who side with elements of The Enclave, and harbor ill-intent for the topside.

 

the good institute can ally with the railroad, the minutemen and the BoS.

the bad institute allies with the Enclave against everyone else...

 

so, the player character will want and need to confront

a past they had not a lot of control over, (an allusion to schlusstricht)

to determine why people act as they do toward the institute in the here and now...

what is the institute? what was it then, what is it now?

what happened elsewhere in the world? did anyone survive?

 

In 'an inside job'/Virgil's fetch quest to bring back the FEV antidote...

you can omit that you have the antidote to Virgil.

if you do, that FEV antidote sits in your Misc inventory forever...

what if the player could make themselves a supermutant?

what if you want to be evil?

you take the antidote, and become a nightkin or supermutant yourself! hehehe

Supermutant + Solar Powered + Mysterious Serum = overpowered?

 

Strong and the Player retake the Institute, destroying the last best hope for humanity,

and the BoS...

 

also, if Virgil has a cure for FEV...

skip forward 20 years, and you get an XMen scenario -

Fawkes and some super mutants would want to have their humanity restored...

at the cost of forfeiting their powers and extended indefinite longevity...

Others, such as Marcus, centaurs, etc wouldn't want to forfeit their supermutant self -

they are a supermutant, but that doesn't make them more or less human etc...

others, such as Harold the walking mutifruit tree, centaurs, ghouls etc are too far gone to receive treatment...

Others, such as Strong, Hancock etc... they wouldn't want to change their appearance;

they may even want to make others more like them -Master style...

 

Where President JH Eden was going to impose mandatory 'cure' in the FO3 water supply,

Virgil in FO4 would have a lot more empathy towards all the different lifeforms;

they can be cured if they want, but not if they don't want to and aren't harming anyone...

Virgil would make an excellent leader of the good institute.

 

We also have other factors at play -

if you completed Cabot House quest with Lorenzo...

you know that Emogene and Mr House of FONV were dating,

and that Emogene has tried to return to Mr House several times...

going without the serum for a long time, and possibly being temporarily dead when

edward deegan retrieved her in the past.

Mr House warned the Cabots about 2077,

and Mr House had learned of Lorenzo... Mr House quested for life-extension technologies,

and the Aqaba city etc...

there may well have been such a city under New Vegas,

partially responsible for the 'invisibility field' at the BoS bunker there...

 

I think after the events of a Fallout movie,

Mr House would be restored to full health via those alien artifact

(a clone of Mr House is destroyed, *gary*, and Mr House retrieves an artifact with the courier,

touches as much, and is restored with no ill effects...).

Long story short,

Mr House would be a faction outright to contend with -

he is very much like Tony Stark, and would be Robco/General Atomics incarnate.

 

Once restored, Mr House may propose a 'take over of General Atomics"...

this would pose a lot of questions for the NCR and BoS...

 

I don't think the Institute would tolerate an ex-alumni who is

proposing to harm most of topside...

the quest arc 'Alma Mater" would be interesting -

House, Institute or independent with the Minutemen etc.

[Skyviper086]

Interesting. An idea for a "Hulk" perk comes to mind.

 

Just throwing this in at random. After reading about Father and Virgil arguing over FEV testing for some reason sparked this thought.

 

I've read that children who lack their parents affection really don't do so well (so they say). I was thinking what if Father's longing to be with his parents was some imprinted into future generations of synths ... that longing is amplified within in the synths thus making them want to leave institute. I know it may be silly in all actuality.

 

I can really see some in-fighting going on in the institute as well. People saying and doing what they do merely to fit in because of fear of being treated differently.

 

I'm saying that because I remember playing a mod where you were in the Enclave. You didn't join, you didn't work with or for. You were in the Enclave. And you had options to do things for sake of appearance (like faking that you killed an innocent person) or you could just flat out do it.

 

And that's just plain human nature. We all work on a pack mentally. Sometimes we're afraid to act alone, but are more willing if someone were with us.

 

So I can see that happening within the institute a side that really wants to help and they can vs a side that wants to be like the Enclave.

 

Light bulb ... Do you remember how Father said they tried to implement a government years ago but it failed? Would it be interesting if that government spawned the creation of the Enclave. It could work to have the Institute being behind it. Because they're one of the most technologically advanced factions I've ever seen.

[montky]

Indeed, there are some awesome ideas in there!

a lot of fans of the Enclave were surprised to see how little Enclave content there was in FO4.

some folks are hesitant to talk about fanon and their own approach to FO stuff,

due to past negative experiences, or 'canon battles' etc...

 

hopefully, folks are happy to share more ideas they may have about the Institute and so.

 

IMHO, the institute is an independent faction outright,

which becomes infiltrated by the Enclave, and subverted by the Railroad...

The Enclave learns about the Institute, and knows it cannot win in a direct confrontation,

so is trying to sabotage the Institute from the inside.

The Bad Institute is half-institute, half-enclave. the good institute is half institute, half railroad...

I don't know if the Enclave knew of the Institute before 2077 or not, though the Assaultron in the CIT basement suggests they may have...

 

----

It would be fun to be able to apply the FEV antidote to the Sole Survivor, especially if they wanted to be extra evil...

conversely, it would be awesome to see Virgil become the leader of the Institute, or CVRIE, or the head of SRB, or PAM, or Desdemona...

An institute 'civil' civil war would be interesting. its going on underground, with no-one really seeing it...

 

// fan theory ensues...

The Enclave wants to pick up the pieces and resume what they believe is rightfully theirs,

the Institute, and restore the commonwealth to pre-war ways... the Enclave may have fought against other Enclave factions,

and some of the suits of armor, crash sites and APCs may have been moved to their locales after 2077...

nordhagen tanks and all, indicate there may have been a conflict of some kind...

the Enclave uses a series of tunnels and access points built into Boston itself.

 

The BoS (who obtained rivet city peacefully to form the prydwyn) want to determine the source of those signals, and negotiate or if necessary, use lethal force to restore order. The BoS is mostly a force for good...

The Atom Cats are descended partly from the Central BoS, and partly from the Enclave... "romeo and Juliet" style. they are unlikely to be merely a raider gang,

given the pre-war words they use, and the unusually high levels of tech and numeracy/literacy...

 

The 2180s supermutant attack had the minutemen and Enclave team up, with the central BoS retreating altogether... this explains a general distrust of the BoS and why Brandis fled to the middle of nowhere. Brandis himself being a survivor from an expeditionary force between 2190 and 2290 at some point...

 

// fringe fan theory

Cabot House arc suggests Emogene and Mr House knew each other,

and that Mr House knew about Lorenzo, and would want to obtain mysterious serum,

or some alien tech, to survive. Lorenzo tried to look for a city like the one at Aqaba that his crown is from, somewhere in CONUS...

The Institute would likely resist Mr House if Mr House faction turned up...

Mr House is an independent faction with detente with the NCR,

and that detente is what allows Mr House to be separate from the BoS also...

Mr House would reclaim RobCo and might make a hostile takeover of General Atomics...

this would require Liberty Prime, so naturally detente with the BoS would have to come to an end...

 

It would also be awesome to be able to inform the captain of Yangtze

that 'the Shi' exist in San Francisco,

and that rather than risk the long voyage home, the captain of Yangtze oughta get the sub

patched up and repaired by the Shi...

maybe, the Shi and the Institute would team up or have a deal of some kind...

 

Shi + institute + railroad vs BoS vs Enclave vs raider gangs vs Mr House...

 

all of that, would make the Boston Commonwealth have

very complicated relations... much like the multiple endings which

were possible in previous FO titles. :smile:

[Skyviper086]

Can this be done without the Shi? I'm only asking because I have some plans for them for another story all together.

 

 

Speaking of the Enclave.

 

People that want to dismiss them need to open their up a little bit. Yeah they're a common bad guy since Fallout 2. But they're bigger than what the games show them to be. Think about this for a second. They were the only ones to have vertibirds. The ones the BoS have came from stolen plans, the ones the NCR have are just straight up stolen. On the East Coast the ones the BoS have are Stolen from the Enclave.

 

Fallout 4 takes place after the destruction of Raven Rock so yeah the Enclave shouldn't be there on the East, Oil Rig blew up on the West Coast. So I'm assuming they're in the South.

 

They are possibly the only faction that can have spanned the entire wasteland because they control the skies. One would have to also assume they use continuity of power. I also say the south because the BoS from Tactics is the in the Midwest and North of the Mason Dixon line. So they Enclave would probably bypass them.

 

And don't roll your eyes out the South either. During the Height of the cold war a lot of things went on here. I myself am 10 minutes, in either direction, away from two silos that housed the Titan ll E Nuclear Missile. There are many more around me. But I mean they serve as stark reminders of how bad things were (and still are).

 

And vertibirds are short range aircraft. So for them to be on the East and West means they had to have been in the middle somewhere.

 

 

BUT

 

I have a story with the Shi in mind and most events of the FO4 will be just background things. There will most certainly be a lot of infighting with them, kind of like there was back in San Fransisco. I'm calling that story Dragon Rising.

 

"Chinese dragons traditionally symbolize potent and auspicious powers ... The dragon is also a symbol of power, strength, and good luck for people who are worthy of it."

-Wikipedia

 

 

That gave me an idea about some things. It's going to be an all out war with an enemy many people won't see coming. (Hopefully). They're only mentioned once. So ... Dragon Rising ... a reclusive faction vs a relentless enemy.

 

 

About Super Mutants don't forget they were working on a fertility program so they can mate. ... I know that's very disturbing but the results of that project can help a lot of people counteract the effects of background radiation.